


Solo Cups

by mystery_notebook



Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: First Kiss, Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-23
Updated: 2014-07-23
Packaged: 2018-02-10 02:08:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,091
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2006961
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mystery_notebook/pseuds/mystery_notebook
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hermann and Newt break off from the we-saved-the-world party just long enough to talk about things.<br/>And, you know, maybe make out for a bit.</p><p>(this is the first work i've posted here i have no clue what i'm doing i'm sorry)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Solo Cups

It's late, really late, and Newt has been making rounds in the Shatterdome all night. Everyone keeps clapping his back and shaking his hand, asking him obvious questions. It’s all the same thing: "You drifted with a Kaiju? And you didn't DIE?" Everyone’s genuinely impressed, as evidenced by the slack-jawed grins that appear around him when he rallies off his drift story for the third, sixth, twelfth time. Newt’s just as hyped as them, of course. He knows what he did, and hey, he's damn proud of it! Strangers hand him drink after drink, each of which he gladly takes. Someone connects their laptop to the PA system and starts playing music-- it’s really eclectic, but all stuff worth dancing to. Everyone’s here, from scientists to janitors, and-- oh, hell, did the cafeteria just break out the surplus pizza rolls? He realizes that this may be the best party he’s ever been to in his entire life. Hopefully Hermann is having fun, in whichever corner of the chaos he’s chosen. God knows he deserves the attention. Total fucking rockstars, both of them are.

 

Raleigh and Mako show up about four or five beers later, and Newt is caught off-guard by the sudden wave of energy as people cheer and run up to greet them. The change in flow makes him dizzy. Making up his mind, he shouts a few words of congratulations in their direction before turning on his heel up against the crowd of people-- the two star pilots will be shaking people’s hands all night, and Newt's head is kind of starting to hurt. He’ll congratulate the duo later, of course, but for now he needs something that isn't beer.

 

The K-science level breakroom, a few doors down from his lab, is quiet and dark and smells like coffee. It looks like a normal break room, and aside from the three empty coffee pots and sink full of mugs there’s really no sign of apocalypse here. Newton leans against the open refrigerator door, head full of fucking bees, and grabs a jug of water from behind some assorted sodas. He kicks the door shut and snatches a red solo cup off the half-unwrapped stack beside the fridge. Something in his nose breaks and starts to drip. He sniffs. It feels like the beginnings of an allergy attack, nothing too bad, so he hoists himself up onto the counter beside his water and concentrates on the music still being blasted a level or two below. _Is this... Ke$ha_? He wonders who was in charge of the we-cancelled-the-apocalypse mix, anyway. He would’ve done it, if he’d had time. The blue light on the closed fridge door slowly doubles while he looks at it. Man, his head really hurts.

 

"Ah, Dr. Geiszler. It appears as if we really ARE on the same wavelength."

 

Newt looks up to see a familiar face, a backlit figure pausing to lean on his cane in the doorframe. He looks a bit more stable than the other and significantly less drunk. Newt smiles and waves him over. "Get sick of all the hand-shaking, Herm? I know you don't like being touched that much."

 

Hermann laughs, tersely, because of course Newton knows that. They had shared minds, if only for a minute. Even now, the sight of the biologist (slouched over a solo cup, disheveled and dirty with tie undone) was causing flashbacks to moments he’d never had-- _locked out of his dorm room, head cloudy with tequila_ \-- and soon the whole experience comes flooding back again. Detailed images of kaiju organs, overcrowded concerts, biology homework and action figures flash before his eyes and overload his mind with the chemistry of 20 emotions at once. His head surges with the mass recollection and he slumps over his cane, trying to take some weight off his his bad leg (which, like most of him, hurts).

 

Meanwhile, Newt realizes that he grabbed three solo cups instead of one and slips one of them off the stack for Hermann.

 

"Yeah, the aftershock kinda sucks. Could be worse, though! If I’d mind-melded with that thing solo, I'd probably be on a sofa in the medical wing right now. Bleeding from every orifice, nursing a migraine the size of a fuckin' kaiju." He stumbles on his words a bit. It’s either the headache or the alcohol, but the water seems to helping both.

 

"Newton, I feel like you might be dead."

 

"Way to be a downer." Newt pauses, sniffing again as he pours his colleague a drink.  "But… yeah, probably. I’m just glad you manned up and decided to go in with me, right? Honestly. I know the side effects blow, but it was worth it in the long run. Don’t ya think?”

 

Hermann makes a low noise in agreement, making a steady beeline to where Newt holds the plastic cup of water in offering.

 

"And. realtalk? It sounds patronizing or whatever, but I’m proud of you. You put on a shitty jerry-rigged helmet and dove into the brain of an alien menace without a moment’s hesitation."

 

Sniff. His nose is starting to run now. "Ya gotta think about that, man, We saved the whole _world_ because you made a decision without thinking about it for twelve years, for once in your dumb..."

 

He stops talking when Herman stops reaching for the cup and touches his cheek.

 

"Dr. Geiszler."

 

"Newt,” the biologist sniffs. “Call me--"

 

"Newt, you're bleeding."

 

He closes his eyes and groans, tilting his head back against the flow of blood. "Dammit. Again?" Hermann nods, adjusting Newt’s face so that the streak of red catches light from the hall.

"It's fine, stay there, we'll fix it. We've fixed worse." A lot worse, Newt thinks. The mathematician reaches onto the counter and tears a paper towel from its roll. He folds it and touches it to Newt’s leaking nose, soaking up blood in a vermillion blossom. Newt's head surges again-- _a fall down brick steps, blood falling past his lips just like it is now_ \-- and he puts a hand on Hermann to stabilize himself. Herm flinches but lets it stay.

 

"It's so weird, dude. Like, how much I technically know about you now."

 

"Well," Hermann states, wiping the blood off newt's lip with the folded square, "That is an expected effect of drifting." He smiles a little. "I have to admit, I'm fairly shocked that we were compatible.”

 

Newt snorts, pushing Hermann's hand away from his face. "No more than I am, believe me. I've been IN your BRAIN, and I STILL don't quite get how it works. All that numbery, mathy junk you love to do..."

 

Gottlieb scoffs noncomittally.

 

"...I couldn't do it in a million years, but now that I think about it... it’s actually pretty rad. Like, how you see beauty in it. It’s just making sense of something bigger, and… I think it’s cool how you puzzle out solutions to problems that shouldn’t exist in the first place. In the name of science, you know. It’s dorky, but it’s... rad."

 

Hermann stops, casting aside the bloodsoaked towel and ripping off a new one. "I'm glad you can see it my way."

 

He begins tearing the paper into a smaller square when Newt hits him on the shoulder. "What about me, hm? Inflate MY ego, dude."

 

Hermann pauses to think, inhaling and exhaling while staring at the half-napkin. He’s almost certain that he’s blushing, but it’s too dark for anyone to tell.

 

"I appreciate..." He says, folding the towel into fourths, "How you don’t actually do things without thinking." He rolls it up tightly, like a tiny sleeping bag. "You think, but you think too quickly. It’s one thing after the other for you, tiny little problems that have to be brought up and solved immediately." He tries to hand the little towel-roll to Newt, who’s too spaced out to actually take it. "And I find it fascinating that you’re most efficient when working with your hands. I can’t imagine doing that, not at all. Once you get your fingers through kaiju guts or... guitar frets, god forbid, your mind fires and it doesn't stop firing. It's quick, it's messy. It explains entirely the way you choose to work."

 

Herm sticks the roll, without resistance, up Newt's left nostril.

 

"Though I still can’t say it _excuses_ it.”

 

Newt wiggles his nose, making sure the roll is in place. "No shame, man. We hate each other, remember? From what I gather, we’ve both had fantasies about killing the other and becoming supreme king of the lab." Newt snickers at how uncoordinated his words sound, falling from his mouth, and Hermann smiles sarcastically as he curves his hand around his lab partner's neck.

 

"Oh, of course. I'm sure you've experienced firsthand all the times I've wanted to walk over and strangle you with the goddamned alien viscera you keep flinging onto my floor."

 

The biologist nods, still smiling, though tired-eyed and drunk. "You know it. And you’ve seen my sick fantasies, right? I would stab you with your ruler, drown you in preservative, draw dicks on your chalkboard, set fire to your chalkboard… um, pour Blue all over your chalkboard..." He feels the hand around his neck, though still joking, clench a little tighter. Newt’s head is still buzzing, all of him is buzzing; and his hand still rests solidly on Hermann's shoulder. He smiles and looks at Hermann. He looks about as equally wrecked, which isn’t unimpressive, and also like he’s seriously thinking about his chalkboard being set on fire.

 

"Or I’d just, like... push you up against it and make out with you. There was that one, too.”

 

He's a bit shocked by how casual it sounds, and by how unsurprised Hermann is when he says it, but he knows deep down that the feelings here are mutual. Herm's palm goes up his jawline, to the side of his face, rubbing up past remnants of a fresh shave and Newt shivers a little bit. "It would still smudge the equations."

 

Hermann leans down as slowly as he can without falling over and Newton leans up as quickly as he can without being weird. They kiss softly, mouths barely open, and it feels fucking fantastic.

 

When they pull apart, Newt’s legs hooked around Hermann’s thighs, there isn’t much sound except for Ke$ha downstairs and the uneven breaths the both of them are trying to take. Geiszler opens his mouth, a bit starry-eyed, to speak, but nothing comes out. Hermann’s hand falls to the other’s knee. "For the record, Newton, I don't hate you."

 

Newt shakes his head, head less buzzy and more bubbly. "Me neither, man. I… I couldn't ask for a better drift partner." He goes to kiss Hermann again, and is met halfway. "Though I could,” he says through parted lips, “probably ask for a better lab partner".

 

Hermann laughs, legitimately, and Newt can feel his breath on his lips. They close the gap again, teeth hitting teeth. Newt makes little noises (as if he wouldn't) and Hermann keeps raking blunt fingertips down his partner’s red-and-blue-stained shirt. Newt’s hands won’t stay still, and it only takes about five seconds for him to find his way around and under Herm’s ridiculous sweatervest. It goes on for what seems like eons, lips and tongue meeting and parting, scientist and scientist taking their sweet time as years of romantic and sexual tension are lit and shot off into space like a bottle rocket.

 

Newt hooks his thumbs through Herm's belt loops and pulls him as close to the countertop as he can. "I love you, dude," he says, quiet and rushed, as if they both don't already know. Hermann breathes again, reveling in the words even if he barely heard them. When he speaks, it is even and deliberate.

 

"I love you. I love you too."

 

And Newt forgets about the pain behind his eyes, and Hermann shifts his weight from his feet to his arms on the countertop, and the both of them are bubbling over with happiness even if they are trying to contain it. Newt can feel the blood soaking into the towel in his nose, Hermann can feel hands on hot skin beneath his shirt. Each of them is shaking with fatigue but they are kissing. Sweet, rough, affectionate against cloth and hair and tats, blood between their mouths, and they love it. They both love it. They both love the other, even if they already knew.

  
Total fucking rockstars, both of them are.


End file.
